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Chinese authorities released journalist Yu Dongyue on February 22, on completion of his 17 year and 3 month sentence for throwing paint during the Tiananmen democracy protests in 1989. Yu's release complies with Article 44 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which provides that a prisoner's fixed term of imprisonment is calculated from the date of detention, if the prisoner was held in detention before the court judgment. Yu will continued to be deprived of his political rights for another five years following his release, pursuant to his original sentence.

Chinese authorities released journalist Yu Dongyue on February 22, on completion of his 17 year and 3 month sentence for throwing paint during the Tiananmen democracy protests in 1989. Yu's release complies with Article 44 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which provides that a prisoner's fixed term of imprisonment is calculated from the date of detention, if the prisoner was held in detention before the court judgment. Yu will continued to be deprived of his political rights for another five years following his release, pursuant to his original sentence.

Chinese authorities released Lu Decheng and Yu Zhijian (no relation to Yu Dongyue), who were imprisoned for the same act of paint throwing, in 1998 and 2000, respectively. Officials have offered no explanation for why they kept Yu Dongyue in prison while releasing Lu and Yu Zhijian (whose sentences were originally 16 years and life, respectively). In December 2004, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that Lu visited Yu Dongyue in prison and said that he was "barely recognizable." According to a June 16, 2005, RFA article, Lu and Yu Zhijian wrote repeatedly without positive result to central government officials in Beijing calling for the release of Yu Dongyue on medical grounds. Yu first became eligible for medical parole in 1996, but a June 6, 2005, South China Morning Post article quoted his mother as saying that when she submitted the application, prison officials told the family that political criminals could not be granted medical parole and that "he never admitted he was wrong." Article 3 of the "Measure on Implementing Medical Parole for Prisoners" only prohibits three categories of prisoners from eligibility for medical parole: (1) those serving death sentences with a two-year reprieve; (2) those whose crimes are serious and toward whom the people have great hatred; and (3) those who injure or incapacitate themselves in prison to escape punishment.

Following his release, Yu's mother told the Times of London that he was "broken and mentally deranged." The Times reported on February 23 that Yu spent two years in solitary confinement and was subjected to electric shocks and brutal beatings. He was once tied to a post and left standing in the sun for days, the report said. According to the Times, a friend said that when authorities transferred Yu to a prison hospital after a mental breakdown in 1992, other prisoners were ordered to take care of him, but instead beat him at will.

According to a February 23 New York Times article, John Kamm, the head of the Dui Hua Foundation who had lobbied on behalf of Yu, stopped short of giving China credit for leniency, saying: "It's an early release only in the sense that he was originally sentenced to 20 years. . . . Frankly, I was hoping they would commute. In my opinion, this is a fairly minor gesture, if one at all."

According to PEN Canada, Yu Dongyue, then a deputy editor of the Liuyang Daily, traveled from Changsha city, Hunan province, to Beijing on May 19, 1989. He was a representative of the Hunan Delegation in Support of the Beijing Students, which traveled to join the Tiananmen democracy protests. On May 23, Yu, Lu, and Yu Zhijian threw paint at the famous portrait of Mao Zedong that faces Tiananmen Square from the Forbidden City. Police immediately arrested the three. Yu was tried on July 11, 1989, and on August 11, the Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced Yu to 20 years in prison and 5 years deprivation of political rights for "counterrevolutionary propaganda" and "counterrevolutionary sabotage and incitement," crimes under Articles 102(2) and 102(1) of China's 1979 Criminal Law. In 1997, authorities transferred Yu to Yuanjiang Prison in Hunan. According to the Dui Hua Foundation, Yu received a 2-year sentence reduction in January 2001 and a second, 15-month sentence reduction some time during 2003.

Reuters (via the Washington Post) and the Associated Press (via the China Post) reported on February 24, that Chinese authorities have detained Yu Zhijian as part of a police roundup of people participating in a hunger strike relay. According to Gao Zhisheng, one of the hunger strike organizers, the purpose of the hunger strike relay is to support "laborers, farmers, intellectuals, free [religious] believers, as well as Party, government, military, police, and members of all communities and all groups (including petitioners and social activists in all places) who are illegally persecuted or violently beaten." Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported (in Chinese) on February 21, that state security officials in Changsha city, Hunan province took Yu Zhijian into custody at his home on February 18, saying that he had posted statements on the Internet. According to RFA, state security officials originally told Yu Zhijian's girlfriend that he would be released after a few days, but on February 21 they sent written notification that they had placed him under criminal detention and suspected him of "subversion of state power."

Lu is currently in Thailand, and is expected to leave for Canada on March 14, 2006, under a UN High Commissioner for Refugees resettlement program, according to a February 23 Reporters Without Borders press release.